How the Lord pulls us up out of the garbage of our past and dances with us on top of the dumpster.

Monthly Archives: January 2016

I have this problem. I love to drive fast and it annoys me when people are driving under the speed limit. My reasoning behind loving to drive fast is that I grew up driving around in a horse and buggy at about 10 MPH. As a little girl I remember the cars whizzing around us and within minutes they were out of sight.

After watching the cars leave us in the dust, sometimes literally, I felt I was missing out. On my 18th birthday I had a car in my driveway and headed to the BMV to get my license. I was not allowed to get my license until 18 because my parents would not sign.

The joy of going fast soon came to a halt after I had 2 speeding tickets within the first 6 months of driving. The first one was a 70 in a 55 at five AM as I was heading to work. The officer looked at my Amish picture and said, “You should know better than driving this fast!” So he wrote me a ticket.

Oh but I loved to go fast. After the tickets I learned to use my cruise.

All this back story to get to my point. I was on my way home tonight and not just one but two cars in front of me where going 25 in a 30, seriously? I would like to tell you I handled it maturely, but I wouldn’t be writing about it now if I had.

I did what every Godly Holy Spirit woman with no fish symbol on her car would do: I laid on the horn, not once but twice, merely out of frustration. I knew they would not speed up, but I felt better laying on the horn. I am sure they had a good reason for going that slow and would I have gotten home much faster, no, it’s just that desire to drive fast that makes me irritable.

So Lord where is the Pearl ? I often think what if the Lord is slowing me down to keep me from having an accident up ahead. Or as most of you are thinking, maybe just to keep you from causing an accident. Now I’m not going to jinx myself by telling you I haven’t had an accident in my 23 years of driving, knock on wood.

In all seriousness, I know that this is one of my issues. However, I have calmed down a lot over the years. My Pearl is that I made it home safe and I didn’t run anyone off the road.

Have you ever listened to your thoughts. You might be surprised what you hear in your own head. Today I listened and was rather shocked to find some serious arrogance.

I pulled into the Kroger parking lot and I saw a shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot and thought well I could use that cart to help the guys who have to come out and clean up the parking lot. I quickly thought no I don’t want to push the cart the extra 50 feet to Kroger and then also through the store. As if I’m 90 years old, good grief.

Then I thought what if someone from Kroger is watching and I will get a good deeds award for pushing the cart in out of the parking lot. Oh my it’s embarrassing to admit my arrogant thoughts. So I did what ever Godly woman would do I pushed the cart into Kroger and used it. To my disappointment no one gave me a badge of honor or a thank you or anything.

I don’t know if there is a Pearl in this experience? I was able to go get groceries. I had the physical ability to get groceries. My hairdresser who I went to see today is laid up with a foot surgery and can’t walk or drive. So I should be grateful that I can walk and drive. We also had money to buy groceries or at least the credit to do so.

The Pearl is that in spite of my arrogance, the Lord is still working on me and helping me see my issues. I’m so grateful for his Holy Spirit who shows me where I am failing.

Today I caught up on my sleep and had a great massage. I had no idea that the tip of my shoulder blades and the muscles under my armpit could hurt that bad? I told my therapist that I have shoulder impingement and explained how I had physical therapy on my muscles under my armpit.

They performed a therapy called grastin. I don’t know how to spell it? Basically they take a big dull thick knife looking tool and they scrape the scar tissue on your muscle. Oh boy it hurt bad and I bruised to the point where it looked like someone beat me, but each time I had more mobility in my muscles under my arm and around my shoulder blade.

Due to 4 neck surgeries in 2 years, I have severe scar tissue from my neck, traps and my shoulder blade had adhered to my back causing inflammation around my rotator cuff muscles. All this to say that today when she dug into the muscles around the tips of my shoulder blades and then on the muscles under my armpit..oh my goodness it hurt so good, I almost cried.

When I left I felt like my shoulder blades were free for the first time in a long time. I could move without tightness and pain. This brings me to my main point. I know your all wondering where I’m going with this.

Sometimes we don’t know how much pain we are in, until we don’t have it anymore. I think this can be true physically and emotionally. We go through the motions and don’t realize how bad we felt until we feel better. The Pearl here is that I was not aware of the constant pain I was in. My body absorbed the pain and I was able to continue to live and move and have my being. However, today I know that I can feel better and I’m grateful for my massage therapist.

Today was a good day at work. I had students who were working with my patients and it was a lifesaver. One of my patients really needed someone to sit with her because she was anxious and did not want to be alone. Her bed alarm was going off every other minute if someone wasn’t in the room with her.

It was a pleasure to have the students learning and loving on my patients.

One of my patients had not had a good bowel movement in a month so he requested to have the colonoscopy prep. He said he loved me when I delivered him the gallon of prep to drink.

I told him that would never happen again. Most people are not very happy to see me carry the gallon of prep. Most generally I get groans and oh my goodness, do I really have to drink all that? If you have had it yourself you know why. I would have to say this patient had definitely found the Pearl in the poop. He was just grateful too poop.

Overall the day was good except I started with a migraine in the late afternoon. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep the night before but I didn’t think I was that tired to trigger a migraine? However, I had one and the Pearl was that I did not vomit. I made it home and relaxed and fell asleep before I vomited. I think my migraines may be hormonal in nature. I felt like I was having hot false today and wondered if menopause is coming soon? I don’t know about finding a Pearl in menopause?

I started reading Job in my daily reading today. I am always amazed with the conversation that took place between Satan and the Lord. They discussed Job, in fact the Lord pointed out Job to Satan. Hey did you see my follower Job, he is blameless and upright.

Every time I read this I groan just a little, like someone punched me in the stomach. Not that I’m blameless and upright, but I have wondered if the Lord has said to Satan, consider my servant Wilma. I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want to be considered for purposeful suffering.

I like to be considered but not for suffering. Yet the Lord allowed Satan to destroy Job’s family, camels, sheep and donkeys. All in one day! I think that would be equated to losing my family in a house fire and I was the only one who escaped to tell about it. I can’t even begin to imagine how Job felt.

If that wasn’t enough Satan came to the Lord again because he couldn’t get Job to curse God. This time The Lord allows Satan to put boils all over Job’s body. Job scraped his body with broken pottery and sat among the ashes. His wife wasn’t much help and told him to curse God and die.

Still, Job did not sin. Instead he said hogwash, should we not accept good and bad from the hand of the Lord.

Wow, what a man. I pray that I could respond this way if I lost everything and was in severe pain. The Pearl here is that no matter what we suffer obviously The Lord is good and we can trust he has a plan even when we can’t see it.

Another Pearl is that if the Lord does bring up my name and say consider my servant Wilma then that means he thinks highly of me and expects that I will make him look good through suffering. This is a different spin on suffering. With this perspective we can say we are special and well loved by the Lord if he trusts us with suffering. I can’t say I like this idea, but I would want The Lord to feel that he could trust me with suffering.

I would want the Lord to believe in me. I want The Lord to know I want to make him look good no matter what I’m going through.

Today I had the opportunity to meet with some ladies from church. I always walk away from this group with nuggets to think about.

Today we talked about shame and how Jesus was shamed and ridiculed by everyone and the wrath of God that was meant for us was placed on him and he willingly took it for us.

I believe the separation that Jesus felt from God’s presence and the weight of our sin on Him is what caused him to sweat drops of blood in the garden before his crucifixion. I am trying to imagine never experiencing sin and always feeling Gods presence and then what it would feel like to be cut off from the Lord and feeling the weight of our dark sin.

God is light and there is no darkness in Him. Being without the Lord is the opposite, a darkness that is so dark it’s indescribable.

My Pearl today is that Jesus was willing to go through darkness and separation from God so that I can walk in His presence and His light. I am so grateful that I get to surrender to His will and as a result I get to experience His presence.

In Matthew 16, Jesus tells Peter he is acting like a stumbling block and basically refers to him as Satan himself. Wow, that is a pretty serious statement! Peter was someone who Jesus had said you are my rock and through you my church will be built.

What had Peter said that was so serious? After Jesus said he would have to suffer and die, Peter told him no Lord this will not happen to you. Peter meant well. However Jesus told Peter he was only seeing the situation through the eyes of humans and not from God’s perspective.

In my life and others I see many situations of suffering and we think how can something so bad happen to someone so good. We can see here Jesus was perfect yet he had to be crucified and so many times we don’t see our suffering through the eyes of God instead we think nothing bad should happen to us.

I wonder how many times I have been a stumbling block to others by wanting pain and suffering to be removed instead of wanting the Lord’s will and his wisdom through the pain.

The Pearl of Jesus suffering was for our benefit, our peace. The Pearl in my suffering has been the fruit of peace and satisfaction. I know who I believe in and come what may I know that the Lord wants what is best for me.